Over the last decade the philosophy of film has emerged as a distinctive

field within aesthetics, engaging with a variety of questions concerning

the relationship between film and art. One question in particular

has become very prominent in philosophical discussions of film: to what extent can film—or individual films—act as a vehicle of or forum for philosophy itself? This is the domain of “film as philosophy,” which forms the focus of this volume. The collection brings together a wide range of contributors, including both philosophers and film scholars. All of them address the question of whether philosophy can take the form of, or be articulated through, film. The contributors canvas a wide variety of forms and periods of film as they present diverse answers to this question.

Including works by both film scholars and philosophers, Smith (film studies, U. of Kent, UK) and Wartenberg (philosophy, Mount Holyoke U., US) present seventeen papers take up the question of whether philosophy can take the form of, or be articulated through, film. In sections covering American, European, and avant-garde cinemas, the contributors display a wide range of approaches, topical concerns, and conclusions. Specific topics include transparency and twist in narrative fiction film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the morality of memory, Sartre's philosophy of nothingness and the modern melodrama, cinema and subjectivity in Krzysztof Kieslowski, and directing desire and female auteurship in the cinema of Catherine Breillat. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The collection brings together a wide range of contributors, including both philosophers and film scholars. All of them address the question of whether philosophy can take the form of, or be articulated through, film. A new text for the growing field of philosophy of film, engaging with a variety of questions concerning the relationship between film and art, aesthetics and philosophy. Explores a wide variety of forms and periods of film, such as the avant-garde, continental film and popular American cinema, to present diverse answers to this question. Draws on a range of films, from the works of Hitchcock to "Mission: Impossible "and "Being John Malkovich,"

The collection brings together a wide range of contributors, including both philosophers and film scholars. All of them address the question of whether philosophy can take the form of, or be articulated through, film.

• A new text for the growing field of philosophy of film, engaging with a variety of questions concerning the relationship between film and art, aesthetics and philosophy.

• Explores a wide variety of forms and periods of film, such as the avant-garde, continental film and popular American cinema, to present diverse answers to this question.

• Draws on a range of films, from the works of Hitchcock to Mission: Impossible and Being John Malkovich.

Murray Smithis Professor of Film Studies at the University of Kent, UK. He is the author of Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (Oxford, 1995) and Trainspotting (British Film Institute, 2002), and the co-editor of Film Theory and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1998) and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (Routledge, 1998). He has published widely on the relationship between ethics, emotion, and films, including essays in this journal and Cinema Journal.

Thomas E. Wartenbergis Chair of the Philosophy Department at Mount Holyoke College, where he also teaches in the Film Studies Program. He is the author of Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance as Social Criticism(Westview Press, 1999) and The Forms of Power: From Domination to Transformation (Temple University Press, 1990), the editor of The Nature of Art(Wadsworth Publishing, 2001), and the co-editor of Philosophy and Film (Routledge, 1995)and The Philosophy of Film: Introductory Text and Readings (Blackwell, 2005).